Gabriel Omar Batistuta has no qualms about telling the ordeal he had to live for years after hanging up his boots as a footballer in 2005.
From there he never hid the desperate situation he went through due to the unbearable pain he suffered in his ankles, as a result of continuous injuries during his 17-year career, which made him perhaps the best number 9 to wear the Argentina national team's albiceleste shirt.
"It's true that I asked a doctor to cut my legs off because I couldn't walk," admitted the Argentine star during his participation in the program "Podemos Hablar" broadcast on the Telefé channel.
Read also: Batistuta hangs up his boots
"I didn't even want to go to the bathroom in the early morning because I knew that those three or four steps would make me cry," he recalled the worst legacy that football left him.
Batistuta was a legend for Fiorentina, but it was with Roma that he won the Serie A title in Italy.
Batigol, or simply known as Bati, explained the problem of his ailments. "The fact is that I don't have cartilage and all my weight is supported by the bones of my foot, so it's bone against bone and the slightest movement causes pain."
Desperate after having been "operated on five times on each leg" and the intense pain he felt "even when lying down", Batistuta said that one day he couldn't take it anymore and when he told the doctor about his desire, he "pulled his hair".
"Luckily, he came up with another idea, to block one foot," because without movement, there is no friction that triggers the pain.
"When the other foot bothers me, what I do is lean on the blocked foot," he pointed out during his participation in the program on the Argentine channel.
The emergence of Messi
The former star of Fiorentina in Italian football, but also left a mark with the jerseys of Newell's Old Boys, River Plate, Boca Juniors and Roma, recognized that he does not have particularly fond memories of his past as a footballer, although there is one fact that he couldn't help being upset about.
Batistuta was the top scorer of the Argentine national team that won the last international titles, the Copa América in 1991 and 1993.
And the blame lies with his compatriot Lionel Messi, who surpassed him as Argentina's all-time leading scorer.
"It bothered me a little, yes. It bothered me, yes. Quite a lot, not a little," he emphasized.
"It was a title that I had and it's not just anything. You go around the world and say 'I am the top scorer of the Argentina national team'. Yes, I liked that."
Although he hesitated a little when talking about his 54 goals and that "Lionel will have twice as many as I did," he found some consolation in his comparison with the Barcelona star.
"The advantage I have is that I come after the extraterrestrial," he joked. (D)